Anyone who wants him had better open up the vault.– I think Interim CEO for Life Beeston echoed your thoughts the other day gsjays.
When you see the Jays cutting their salary budget this year by not having to pay Burnett, and after 2010, they will be free of Ryan’s salary, it looks as if there will be some cash in the kitty to make a very good offer to extend Halladay. He might go elsewhere if he thought there was a better opportunity to win, but if you look at the pitching potential that is there, and if Wells, Rios, and Snider can get off the dime, that opportunity might just be right here. Everything would have to come together just right, but most of the pieces are there.

Actually, I’m not convinced now any more than I was last winter that we have the pieces to win. All that Wells and Rios have confirmed is they’re not clutch performers and we’re paying them at obscene and untradeable levels for the performance they’re delivering. They both should see a sports physiologist and get their thinking straightened away.
Snider, like Lind will go through an adjustment period and will ultimately be a great player, but we can’t expect him to carry the bag as a 21 year old rookie, that was supposed to be Rios and Wells. The Wells and Rios’s contracts will hamstring this team for the next 5 years and I’m not convinced we’ll see any better performance from them than we are right now. It’s extremely disappointing.

In addition, Overbay, as nice of a player as he is, is just not delivering what we need from that position, there are now 22 first basemen ahead of him in both home runs and slg. It’s a power position and we’re not getting the power nor rbi’s from him.

Rolen, as great as he is on defense is also not delivering the power numbers or RBI’s, BUT at least he’s hitting for high average.

Last winter, I posted we needed to change our 1st baseman, 3rd baseman and short stop. We need both the 1st and 3rd base guys to deliver power and rbi’s and the short stop to become the lead off hitter with speed to steal bases.
Although, we have been fortunate that Scutaro has put up a career year so far, the only thing that’s really changed is, we’re letting another year go by without making the changes we need in order to have a good chance to win.

Of course, there’s also been a real change to the economy and team revenue, and now, I see little option but to trade Halladay and explode a big chunk of this team and re-built around Lind, Hill, Snider, Romero and other young players, put significant sums into our minor league development and try to win in 4-5 years.

With the circumstances the Jays are in. I think the mistake that was made in the way that the offense was built. This team is largely built around pitching and defense. If you look historically, the teams that were more built around pitching and defense have always had offenses that did the little things like steal, bunt, first-to-third, hit-and-run.
Looking back (Thomas, Glaus… etc.) it seems like they tried to build the offense around powerand now they don’t have the right personel to play lower scroing games.

A perfect example in the 6th last game: Overbay (I think) leads off with a double. Rios comes up a hits a GB to the left side; now in this case his GB got through the hole. I just don’t understand why the Jays seem not to have a plan on where they want to hit the ball in certain situations. Any ball hit hard to the right side of the field in that sitaution will move the runner over; I’m not advocating just giving up the out but a productive out is benefical. However, the Jays never seem satisfied with 1 run.

I agree that the Jays need 1 big bopper in the middle of the line-up but with all the money tied up in Rios and Wells this isn’t likely going to happen. I believe there was only something lik 28 players who hit 30+ homers last year which means if you want a player of that calibre you are either overpaying in the FA market (and the Jays don’t have excess payroll room) or overpaying with prospects in a trade.

I agree on Snider, remember it took Lind a couple years of being up and down before he could stick. If Snider is going to be a successful big leaguer though he is going to have to provide 35ish homerun power with atleast a 250ish average because he stirkes out at a phenominal rate (almost Howardish).

We do need more power from either a 1B or 3B. I don’t neccessarily think both. Having 1 big power bat tends to have a big effect on the hitters around him; even if they are just above average type guys (Lind, Rolen). However, if you surround that bat with garbage (Ray Durham in the case of Bonds) they just pith around him.

Multiple reports indicated that representatives from the Dodgers, Phillies, Brewers, Tigers, Red Sox, Rangers and Twins were in attendance for Halladay’s latest start, which netted his 11th win and lowered his ERA to 2.73. Former Jays GMs Pat Gillick (Phillies) and Gord Ash (Brewers) were in Toronto for the entire weekend series against Boston.

Philadelphia is still believed to be the front-runner to land Halladay, and the Jays and Phils have reportedly already discussed a few of the Phillies’ top prospects, including outfielder Michael Taylor, shortstop Jason Donald and pitcher Carlos Carrasco. Top pitching prospect Kyle Drabek likely needs to be included to convince the Jays to pull the trigger on any deal with the Phils.

Seems to me if they kept Halladay they could trade some others (Rolen, Overbay, Rios, Scutaro, Barajas, and [hopefully] Wells) and simply re-tool through free agency and prosepcts and hope to keep Halladay in hopes of being good in 2011 and hopefully competing in 2012.

However, if Halladay is traded the Jays need to go through a total re-build and HOPE they can compete by 2014, that is assuming they draft and develop well. If they don’t draft and develop internally though they might as well change their name to the Nationals and hope for 2020.

Although what you suggest is a possibility, I think you forgot one significant point which is Halladay needs to be resigned and in order to resign him, he needs to be convinced The Jays have a real possibility of winning over the next two to three years.
To convince Halladay of that possibility JP needs to be fired immediately, since there is no possible way Halladay would ever believe we had the chance to win with JP in the GM position-he’s already failed miserably and left this franchise in a damn precarious and potentially fatal position.
Remember it’s JP and his big mouth which caused this public negotiation and embarrassment in the first place. In addition, JP was the architect to the Wells and Rios’s contracts and Halladay clearly knows, as we do, how disastrous those two contracts are for this franchise over the next 5 years.
Further, Beeston needs to convince Roy that Rogers will underwrite, the removal of Wells, Rios and the others you identify as well as increase the payroll to whatever is required in order to have a chance to win.
If I was Halladay, I’d like to see some actions happen before I signed on the dotted line-like JP being immediately fired, both Wells and Rios dumped, Overbay traded, the recall of Sinder, promotion of Dopirak and the release of Millar and Delluci.
Could that happen, absolutely, will it-who knows.

Exactly, IF they are going to keep Halladay they need to convince him that they can be competitive quickly which means retooling now. The thing I wonder about ownsership is how much power the young rogers has in comparison to Sr. That could end up being a big factor because Sr. was a HUGE fan. If the plan is to trade Halladay though I don’t think it can stop there it has to be everyone possible and this year.

Personally, if the team is just re-tooling I think packaging a couple of the pitchers that are close to being ML (we have enough of them) ready for a proven power hitter and then using some current veterans to replenish the farm system in the A+, AA, AAA range could be beneficial in the long and short term. If we could just stablize the middle of the order with guys like Hill, Lind, [insert power name hitter here] the rest of the holes can be filled with a combination of defense, speed, and OBP, sort of like the Twins have done successfully for years.

Something I just looked at was the most recently updated Elias Rankings. As of right now Scutaro is a Type A and Barajas is a Type B free agent (assuming they are offered arbitration) which would represent significant draft picks and/or leverage in any trades. Could end up being a trade where the Jays essentially get a couple prospects that are close to ML ready for the picks.

Also, if some of the rumours from last year are true the team was looking at Cito for GM. Not sure if he would accept or not but he seems to manage people nicley just like Beeston is famous for. If JP is done though it has to be now not later… although they wouldn’t neccessarily need a replacement now.

I think we will see Dopirak up sooner rather than later. Was the Cubs top prospect (maybe 2nd) until he had a serious foot injury that cost him almost a full season and then needed surgery afterward the season. He is actually an interesting pick-up by the Jays. One of the biggest reasons he signed was to get assigned to Dunedin, his hometown, and play a year at home. If he struggled again the sentiment was he was going to retire.

The Toronto Blue Jays made an offer to the New York Mets they apparently could refuse.

According to a report on SI.com, Toronto asked for a package of prospects — outfielder Fernando Martinez, young pitchers Bobby Parnell and Jon Niese and shortstop Ruben Tejada — from New York in exchange for for Roy Halladay, who has been on the market as he heads into the final year of his deal with the Blue Jays.

The Mets said no, and it’s not believed their continuing to discuss a trade with Toronto.

Just another example of JP’s incompetence. Oh, and like it helps the case of dealing Halladay when one team announces they turned down JP’s offer. There’s a need to develop a feeding frenzy in order to drive offers up-that doesn’t happen if teams continue to announce they’re out of the bidding.
In addition, now every other team with interest is going to compare what they were going to offer with what JP asked of the Mets. That’s business negotiation for kindergarten students.
Please, Paul Beeston put a gag on JP and deal with this yourself.

This is where things get weird with trades rumours though. Another team could have planted that rumour to drive up the perceived price and keep Halladay from a competitor. Similar to the Heatley situation.

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